Doctor Who: The blue box and the yellow bus
by saberman610
Summary: Ah, prehistoric times. Dinosaurs, no campanions to lose, and a bus of schoolkids. Wait, what?
1. Chapter 1

"Hello, I'm John Smith, health and safety" said the Doctor, flashing his sheet of psychic paper in front of the receptionist. "Nothing to worry about, just a routine check of how everything's holding up here. Can't be too careful eh?" The women looked at the paper, then eyed the Doctor quizzically.

"It was my understanding" she said "that we were inspected by DCFS two days ago." The Doctor's stood taken aback for a moment, his boyish grin frozen on his face.

"Oh-I mean-yes, of course they did. Unfortunately" the Doctor's mind raced to come up with an adequate excuse, "the previous inspector forgot to fill out...page seven, paragraph 2-B...or was it 3-B? Either way it was a terribly important paragraph and I'm afraid his inspection is null and void without it."

The receptionist sighed. On the one hand, the stranger in front of her seemed a touch suspicious, but on the other hand he did have the credentials. She reached under the desk and handed him a visitor's pass.

"Please wear this at all times while on the campus" she said, "will you be needing an escort?"

"No, thanks" the Doctor said, putting the pass on. "I'll do fine on my own." And with that he quickly walked away. Once out of the receptionist's sight, he reached in his pocket and took out a small black box covered in dials and knobs. A small satellite dish whirled around at the top, beeping periodically.

He was about to take a step down the hall when a bell rang, and all the doors in the hallway suddenly sprang open. The Doctor instinctively reached for his sonic screwdriver and took a step back, but there was no need for alarm. Children came flooding out of the rooms, talking excitedly as teachers led them along, shouting instructions over the din of babble.

"Hey mister" said a small Hispanic boy in a blue hoodie, "what's that?" He was pointing at the black box in the Doctor's hand.

"Oh, this?" he replied "it's my...er...timey-whimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff." The child was about to speak again, but was engulfed by the sea of students and disappeared.

After the students had cleared, the Doctor looked back down at his device. This place seemed like a normal enough elementary school, so why were there vortex particles here? Usually those kinds of particles were only found on time travelers such as himself, so he couldn't fathom what could be going on in this instance. The dish was now spinning much more slowly, indicating that the particles were now farther away. Were they on one of this children? He walked quickly after the throng of kids, and the dish slowly began to pick up speed.

Suddenly, the Doctor stopped and stared out the window. After a moment he shook his head. He had to be imagining things, because for a moment he thought he saw a pair of eye's on one of the school buses staring back at him.


	2. Real Chapter 1

I'm starting this story over, but I don't want to delete this and make a new story, so we're gonna call that last chapter "chapter 1 beta." Here's the real first chapter (It's still Doc #10)

"Aw, you're not so bad, eh?" the Doctor said, feeding the triceratops the leaves in his hand. "Feeding dinosaurs, always a good time."

The Time Lord put his now empty hands in his pockets and took a look around. As much as he loved humans, prehistoric earth was something to behold. All that beautiful green foliage with no hint of a telephone pole or factory. Sure, large predators roamed the surface, but that was nothing a simple perception filter couldn't take care of. All that, and feeding dinosaurs was fun.

The Doctor leaned on a tree, his thoughts now introverted. He had lost Rose, made a soldier out of Martha, and resigned Donna to a state of either amnesia or brain-melting pain and death. That's not to say his track record with companions was great to begin with. He was constantly putting his friends in peril, but never before had he felt so guilty about it.

He kicked at a rock absentmindedly. Sometimes he wished he was still his last incarnation. Back then he could bring himself to rage and yell and curse the universe, but not anymore. He just didn't have it in him now.

The Doctor was thankful that there were no people around now. The last thing he needed was to have to save the human race again. Now all there was to worry about was the asteroid, but that wasn't due for another few hours. By then he'd be up in the cosmos, watching the earth get pulverized and, this was his favorite part, he would not have to do a thing about it.

A strange scent permeated the air. The Doctor sniffed at it. It was familiar, and it reminded him of Donna. He racked his brains for the memory, then her appearance in the TARDIS came to mind.

_ Oh, right_ he thought _tachyeon particles._

Then the implications of that hit him.

There was the feeling of static in the air, making his hairs stand on end. This wasn't a person coming in, it was much bigger. HE was also in the middle of it.

The Time Lord ran and dove just as a yellow school bus materialized where he had been standing.

"What?" he asked himself.

The doors opened and a gaggle of school kids came rushing out.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Ms. Frizzle!" one of them called back, "there's a man here. Are you sure we're in the right time period?"

"WHAT?"


	3. I knew I should've stayed home today

The Doctor stared, flabbergasted, at the bus. Ignoring the children, he went in for a closer look at the vehicle.

"Doesn't seem like anything special..." he said, more to himself than anyone. "General mid-nineties model," he licked the side, "paint is from the nineties at any rate, ugh."

He took a step back and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the side. The bus started shaking, and the engine started sputtering. It almost sounded like it was being tickled. The Doctor rushed to the front, and the bus looked up at him.

"The bus," he said slowly, "is looking at me. It's looking at me. Is it supposed to do that?"

"Ms. Frizzle!" the child repeated, "there's a man out here!"

The Doctor rationalized two things: that Ms. Frizzle was responsible for this bus, and that she was inside the vehicle.

"Excuse me" he said, passing a blond girl and leaping onto the bus. The inside appeared just as normal on the outside, save the control panel, which was a confounding mass of buttons, levers, and knobs. A woman with a red bee-hive of a hairstyle was in the back talking to a bespectacled child.

"I knew I should have stayed home today..." the child mumbled.

"Come on Arnold," the woman said brightly, "you won't learn anything from inside the bus!"

"Yeah, his chances of being eaten also dramatically decrease" the Doctor butted in testily. "Who are you? Where did you get a time-traveling bus, and what in Rassilon's name are you doing taking school kids to see dinosaurs?" The woman thought for a moment.

"Ms. Frizzle, I've always had the bus, and we're on a field trip!" she answered in order.

"A field trip?" the Doctor asked. "You call this a field trip? You're jeopardizing the very fabric of the universe just by using this thing!" He looked around. "Unless you've got an Eye of Harmony under the hood, than this bus is more of a danger than a vehicle. And what do you know about history, eh?" he said, turning back to the teacher. "I'm sure you know dates and names, but you don't know which fly is supposed to cause an evolutionary mutation out of a dozen of them!"

"Well, unless I've got my history wrong, British men in pinstriped suites aren't supposed to be here either," Ms. Frizzle retorted.

"I'm...different" the Doctor sputtered, not wanting to reveal too much. "Time travel is my life. I'm a professional. Looking at this, you're amateur at best."

First thing was first: these kids were being sent back home. The Doctor stomped to the door.

"Alright, everyone back on the bus!" he called. "Field trip is canceled!"

The children weren't listening. They were scattered about, the blond girl examining some prehistoric plant, mumbling about research, with an Asian girl and African girl at her shoulders.. Two boys were darting this way and that, looking like they were playing tag.

"You, bus" the Doctor said, leaping back to the front. "You've got eyes, you probably have ears as well. Take these kids back home, right now!" The bus made a hissing sound, glaring at the Doctor.

"An asteroid is hitting this planet in a matter of hours. Everything but bugs and mice will die" the Doctor explained with forced calm. "This is no place for children, now go!"

"Alright class" Ms. Frizzle said, stepping off of the bus with Arnold. "Let's go exploring. Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

"Are you insane?" the Doctor cried. "This isn't Disney World, though I suppose the Silurians are working on something similar...but in any case, there's more than plants and herbivores out there!"

"Are you volunteering to chaperone?" Ms. Frizzle asked.

The Doctor gaped at her. True, this whole situation was beyond crazy, but she controlled the bus, and he probably couldn't force this many kids onto the TARDIS.

"Fine" he said angrily. "We have twenty minutes, then you're getting back on this bus and leaving!"

"Deal" said Ms. Frizzle brightly. "Class, this man has agreed to come with us. His name is the Doctor!"

"Hi Doctor!" the class said. Ms. Frizzle began leading them away, towards the heavily wooded jungle. The Doctor hung back for a moment.

"I never told her my name..." he said to himself. He quickly trotted off after the group. Someone had to make sure they didn't screw everything up after all.


End file.
